A well written article on some of the changing tides of the internet, but it seems to miss the forest for the trees. Every website goes through a process of enshittification or at least of cultural relevance or peak participation which shapes what it looks and how people interact with it. Even during these periods of change some people thrive and others do not. I think its fair to talk about seeing a particular flavor of interaction or website disappear from your immediate vision with no clear alternatives in sight, but it’s also quite clear that the as others have stated the author clearly hasn’t set out on a pilgrimage to check out large slices of what’s out there on the internet. There are platforms with tens to hundreds of millions of people out there which are hardly mentioned (such as tiktok, mentioned elsewhere) which have thriving autistic communities. Hardly no mention is given to platforms more dedicated to chatting than posting, or the plethora of tools which facilitate the creation of communities which float between those which primarily are virtual but host occasional in person meetups.

I’m also a bit confused about why the author believes it is dying? They don’t seem to talk a lot about how these folks are being pushed out, so much as perhaps they are being more difficult to find. Rather than being in the town’s center, they are lost in the crowd? If that’s what they are lamenting, then perhaps they should be mostly avoiding platforms above a certain size. You wont find many oddballs in a sea of normal people, and the size of places they remember from their childhood, where they claim these individuals were around were much smaller. I would argue even more strange people exist on these massive platforms today than they did back then, it’s just that their voices are lost to the sea.